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Being overweight makes your heart larger and heavier: A rise of 4 in BMI raises the risk of death, reveals first study of its kind

The first study of its kind has revealed some extra dangers of putting on weightIt can add up to eight grams to the heart, and increase its volume by almost 5%A bigger, heavier heart raises the risk of irregular heartbeats and heart attacksAn increase of 4.3 in BMI made the heart substantially heavier, scientists foundBy

The first study of its kind in healthy people has found putting on weight can add up to eight grams to the heart, and increase its volume by almost five per cent.

A bigger, heavier heart raises the risk of conditions from an irregular heartbeat to a heart attack, and the organ should in fact grow smaller with age.

Researchers at Queen Mary University of London and the University of Oxford examined MRI scans for 4,561 people from the UK Biobank database.

They found an increase of 4.3 in BMI, which could take someone from a healthy weight to the brink of obesity, made their heart substantially heavier.

It matters because a larger heart stretches its upper chambers, disrupting the electrical signal needed to keep it beating regularly.

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The first study of its kind in healthy people has found putting on weight can add up to eight grams to the heart, and increase its volume by almost five per cent

While people have long known they risk heart disease from overeating because it hikes their cholesterol and blood pressure, this is the first evidence of changes to the structure of the heart itself. But researchers haven’t fully understood how exactly the two things are linked.

‘With this research, we’ve helped to show how an unhealthy lifestyle increases your risk of heart disease.’

Soaring rates of irregular heartbeats

The results suggest Britain’s obesity crisis may be contributing to soaring rates of atrial fibrillation or irregular heartbeat.

This raises people’s risk of stroke, because the atria, which are the two upper chambers of the four chambers in the heart, fail to pump properly.

Professor Petersen said: ‘We believe the increase in the left atrium’s size stretches it so that it does not play its part in conducting an electrical impulse from the sinus node, the pacemaker of the heart, to the node which causes the heart to beat.’

The researchers looked at a number of lifestyle factors which could affect the heart’s size, which were blood pressure, smoking, exercise, cholesterol, alcohol intake, diabetes and people’s weight, measured using BMI.

THE BEST HEART DRUG SINCE STATINS Thousands of lives could be saved thanks to a new heart drug hailed as the biggest breakthrough since statins, it was reported in August.

In a landmark four year trial, scientists found that the drug given by injection every three months cut the risk of heart attacks by a quarter.

The 10,000 patient study, involving 1,000 doctors in 39 countries, also suggested it could halve the risk of dying from lung cancer and prevent arthritis and gout.

Scientists last night said the treatment marked a new era of therapeutics that could save thousands of lives.

The drug, Canakinumab, works by reducing inflammation a major new approach in heart medicine.

For the past 30 years cholesterol busting statins have been given to nearly all people deemed to be at risk of cardiovascular disease in a bid to save them from heart attacks and strokes.

Yet half of the 200,000 people who have a heart attack in Britain each year do not have high cholesterol, meaning there is a desperate need for a different approach to treatment.

The structure of the heart

Body weight had the biggest consistent impact on the structure of the heart, according to the study published in the journal PLoS One.

A BMI increase of 4.3 increased the weight of the left side of the heart by 8.3 per cent, which was calculated using measurements of the heart muscle taken from the patient scans.